Retorts

Just Bad Luck?

I find it enormously frustrating that during the bombardment of Jupiter by the fragments of comet SL9, all of the fragments will strike the far side of the planet, out of view.

Being a suspicious type, I bear in mind the words of James Bond -- "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." Out of twenty-odd fragments, surely some should by chance splash down on the side where we can see the action.

On the other hand, I suppose it's possible that the laws of physics tend to lead to impact sites in this sort of scenario clustering together for some reason.

Could you or one of your readers enlighten me as to whether it's simply ordinary bad luck that everything lands on the far side, or Murphy's Law running rampant.

P. Dalton, Christchurch